Touch
by Ada Kensington
Summary: Unable to sleep, Orochimaru watches Sasuke...


Touch

* * *

A light touch from a pale, well-manicured hand, and the wooden door opens inward. The hinges groan and creak in protest, as though they are somehow aware of his intentions and wish to put a stop to his madness.

Yes, Orochimaru supposes - smiling as a thin streak of yellow light darts across the floor, illuminating the figure of a young man lying asleep in a Spartan room in a single bed – it could be called madness. This feeling, this unrest of the mind, this loss of sense and reason, whatever it was, though he knew it to be but the sum of human attraction (and thus illogical), did not stop him from coming here, night after night. He would try oh so hard to resist, to find rest and contentment in the blissful banality of dreamless sleep. But ever as he closed his eyes, visions of _him_, of his fierce, thoughtless beauty, tortured him into wakefulness, ensuring that his traitorous legs would carry him inexorably forward in the darkness, along the route he knew only too well.

And here he was. Again, as always. Watching Sasuke.

He applies a little more pressure, and the gap widens. A tableaux at once familiar and tantalisingly unapproachable presents itself before his very eyes.

Down here, in this level of the subterranean complex of tunnels, there was no moonlight. No moonlight to shine through a sheer-curtained window onto the boy's supine form. Though he can well imagine it.

Sometimes, in the dreams which plague his increasingly fitful sleep, he would fancy himself an observer as the object of his ardent desire bathed in the waters of a deep, still lake - his flawless skin drinking in the silvery half-light of the moon in the night sky above. Always, the water would lap around his navel, capricious, teasing, exposing the boy's toned stomach and his deft, graceful arms but, ahh, obscuring, always obscuring his fine, strong legs and other parts with which he sorely wished to be acquainted. Water beading upon glistening skin. Wet hair, dark as the shadows of twilight. Lips moulded for arrogance. The clean, cold smell of outdoors mingling with sweat and that warm, peculiar and intensely personal scent he would ever associate with Sasuke. It was excruciating.

The dream would carry on in this manner for some time until he could bear it no longer. Then he would rise, compelled by a force beyond his control, to go to him, in hope that the sight of the boy might stay the fire of his passion.

It never did. But that did not stop him from returning.

It should have been a small mercy, then, that there was no moonlight, but the flickering orange glow of the lamps that line the walls of the corridors serve equally well in flattering the form of his young apprentice. It is elemental, and the warmth of its colour and its sound satisfies him upon a profound level. It makes the shadows dance, and casts into sharp relief every crease in the white cotton sheets the boy lies beneath.

Orochimaru's heart beat quickens now as his hand curls around the door frame, forcing the gap open wider still. Underneath the sheets he can make out the outline of the boy, lying on his side, with his back turned to him. His gaze travels across, taking care to absorb every inch of his young apprentice; the dark hair which he was sure would look so much more beautiful with his fingers entangled in it; the delectable neck he had already tasted that begged to be tasted again; the well-muscled shoulders with which he wanted nothing more than to raze his fingernails down in the throes of uncontrollable passion; his waist, tapered in ever so slightly, and the small of his back, which he imagined a perfect place for his wandering hands to rest. As he notices the graceful curve of a buttock, however, he tears himself away, as he knows he must.

If he did not, he knew that he would touch him.

Sasuke did not like to be touched. The boy had told him so himself on the first day of his training, his voice ringing out, clear and cold, throughout the room in which they had been sparring. Without thought, he had laid a hand upon the boy's shoulder to congratulate him on having learned yet another new technique. Though not wholly unexpected, Sasuke's reaction, when it came, surprised him.

A swish of fabric, and a fist rose to meet his face with bewildering speed. He hardly had time to register it, let alone swerve to avoid the assault, and a last-minute sidestep was all that saved him from humiliation.

There was a snap in the air as fist met palm, then a sharp intake of breath as he gripped his apprentice's wrist and brought it down with force. The boy was in pain at that moment, he knew, and he could not help but smile. Sasuke's cheeks were flushed, a light sheen of sweat graced his forehead, and he trembled slightly, though that was most certainly not out of fear. One look at the boy's eyes banished all such feeble assumptions.

"I do not like to be touched," he had said, fixing Orochimaru with a dark look that could have rent iron. "If you do it again... I will kill you."

Such arrogance. Such brash, thoughtless arrogance from one so young and yet untried. The boy's breaths came faster then: each one sharp, rapid, ragged and hot against the loose fitting tunic Orochimaru wore. Where his hand gripped Sasuke's wrist, he could feel the blood pulsing through his veins. The stifling silence that surrounded them was thick with animosity, and the air between them seemed to crackle and spark. Master and apprentice were but inches from touching. And there, in the austere training room in the bowels of his subterranean lair, something ancient awoke within Orochimaru.

He suddenly found that he very much wanted to touch him.

"Let go of me."

It was not a request.

A sardonic smile began to lurk at the edges of Orochimaru's mouth. No matter how important the Uchiha chick was, no matter the sudden and unlooked for desire he felt for him, he would not tolerate outright insubordination. Slowly, slowly, two pale fingers reached to tilt the boy's chin upwards. Yellow eyes, the colour of bitter wine met flinty grey. He regarded his apprentice for a moment, giving him a sweeping look up and down which made the boy shiver.

Then he punched him in the stomach as hard as he physically could.

A cry of pain shattered the strange, silent spell that had been cast over the moment, and instantly, the boy doubled over. Orochimaru had observed him with folded arms and amusement in his eyes as his young charge coughed up a thick, bloody string of clotted drool. When Sasuke finally recovered enough to look up at him, the hatred in his eyes took Orochimaru's breath.

That night, he had gone to bed thinking about him, and had done ever since.

The Uchiha was captivating, there was no other word to describe him. The way he held others in thrall was almost unsettling. From his vantage point upon the threshold of Sasuke's room, pale fingers begin to caress thin lips as he ponders on what it will be like to take him. He wonders what sort of love they would make. A brief flash of a wry smile turns a corner of his mouth as he realises that it would be nothing that that fool Jiraiya could ever conceive of. For all his whorishness, the man was something of a romantic and possessed laughably high ideals of love. Orochimaru was not like his old team mate, and had no such scruples. Though it was rare indeed that he felt the need to satiate any sort of carnal desire, when it was required, he did not stand upon ceremony. The sex, when it came, was cold, brutal and business-like, and though he would leave feeling better, it never affected him on any emotional level.

At the moment, however, he would have to content himself with watching and waiting. Coming here usually worked like a charm.

Soundless, Orochimaru retreats into the flickering lamplight of the corridor and closes the door carefully so as not to wake his sleeping apprentice. Though by no means satisfied, he feels now that he will at least be able to sleep and perhaps be gifted with a dream in which he was not merely a spectator. A soft laugh escapes his lips at the thought and is absorbed into the oppressive and seemingly infinite silence of the myriad tunnels. Wishful thinking, he says to himself, though there is some consolation to be had. It was _essential_ that he did not touch him yet, that he did not yield to his desire. For, like any good teacher, he wished to teach Sasuke an important lesson.

As of late, Sasuke had become increasingly withdrawn. Unless he was in training he would take to his rooms, he would more often than not eat alone, and would speak only when spoken to – and sometimes not even then. When Orochimaru, in a flippant mood, had inquired as to why this might be, Sasuke had replied that in order to kill his brother, he had to become emotionless. Orochimaru had laughed and replied that he was doing a very good job of feigning it, to which the boy countered by drawing his sword. At the end of their sparring match, Orochimaru had promised to teach him how.

"If you wish to become emotionless," he had said, pointing the tip of the kusanagi at the boy's throat, "I can make it so."

Sasuke had merely stared at him insolently, before he turned and walked away.

It would not be long now before the dreams would fade and the sleepless nights end. The boy was making strides towards his goal. There was real killing intent in his attacks during this morning's training session, and it was becoming more and more difficult to rile him. Ironically, though, his arrogance, on this occasion, would be his saving grace. The boy was currently labouring under the delusion that he could become emotional just because he willed it. Once Orochimaru had finished with him, however, the Uchiha would know the true meaning of "emotionless". He could not touch him now, but when the time was right, he would take him.

And he would break him.

* * *


End file.
